Comedian Jenny Slate wore a badge of dishonor for years after she was fired after her first season of Saturday Night Live for uttering the word “f**k” during her first episode in 2009. She punished herself for years after that incident.

She said, “I wasn’t strong enough to tell myself it was okay, and I walked around with that kind of filthy, filthy embarrassment cloak on for a few years. I guess I chose to pay penance for quite a while.”

The overall experience at NBC was a disappointing one for the 32-year-old actress because she never really fit in.

“Thirty Rock’s a romantic place, and there are so many romantic things about it. The costumes have been there forever. You look in a pair of pants, and in Sharpie it says GILDA in them,a’ Slate shared. “But it was a really weird disappointment when I got there and realized how foolish it was that what I expected it would be was from the expectations of a 7-year-old. And that they didn’t actually want my creative input as a woman.”

One thing Hollywood has done to Slate is create an impression that there isn’t enough work out there for her.

The Obvious Child star explained, “There’s a whole thing now in the entertainment industry that’s like, ‘You need to write for yourself. Those are the people that are really valuable.’ And it’s just like, I don’t want to! I just want to act. It also says, ‘You’re not attractive enough or good enough that we would just let you act.'”

Slate is currently working as a scriptwriter on an upcoming Looney Tunes film for Warner Bros.